Marjorie taylor greene

It is always interesting to see who the American left claims are the leaders of the American right. There was a time during President Trump’s first term when Steve Bannon fit the role – and relished playing it. Back then most days brought another media profile of the dark genius of the MAGA movement. The Guardian, New York Times and others were obsessed. Vanity Fair would send reporters to follow Bannon as he conquered America and, er, Europe. Documentary crews were perennially in tow. Indeed one documentary following Bannon around included a scene in which they followed him to the showing of another documentary about him from a crew who had similarly followed him around. At which point you felt that we might fall into some kind of vortex.

The contrast could hardly have been starker. As Donald Trump palled around with Mohammed bin Salman in the newly gilded Oval Office, Congress was voting on a transparency act that would further expose Jeffrey Epstein’s grave misdeeds. Trump, who had worked overtime to try and quash the vote, was in his element with the Saudi crown prince. Transparency? Not a bit of it. Trump proclaimed that the crown prince “knew nothing” about the death of Jamal Khashoggi who was, after all, “extremely controversial,” the term that he often deploys to describe anyone he dislikes or finds nettlesome.  The hero, or, to put it more precisely, heroine, of the day was Marjorie Taylor Greene. Greene is a profile in courage.

The main thing that has made the Epstein files seem politically (as opposed to morally) significant is that Donald Trump remains obsessed with preventing them from seeing the light of day. He thus devoted much of Wednesday to importuning Republicans such as Colorado Congresswoman Lauren Boebert not to back their release. “Only a very bad, or stupid, Republican,” Trump declared, “would fall into that trap.” But senior Republicans, as Politico reported, are expecting mass vote defections in the coming week as legislators prepare to vote for a disclosure bill sponsored by Representatives Ro Khanna and Thomas Massie.

Last week, in anticipation of her appearance on The View this morning (or afternoon, depending on your local listings), Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene tweeted out an image of her perfect “100 A Liberty Score,” given out by Conservative Review and Blaze Media. “Nothing has changed about me, I’m 1,000,000% America ONLY,” she wrote. “Sorry I’m not sorry. I don’t obey Republican men’s demands that I, as a woman, don’t remain seen but not heard.” Well, there’s no chance of us not hearing Rep. Greene.

Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene has spent the last week gnawing on the hand that feeds her, showing that no one in American politics is worse at reading the tea leaves.   Taylor Greene entered Congress in 2021 wearing a face mask that read “Trump Won.” She was so fervently a supporter of January 6 pardons that Georgians invoked an "insurrectionist disqualification clause" to try to remove her from Congress. But now that MAGA is riding high on a wave of world peace and prosperity, Taylor Greene has changed her tune and, though she says she’s still conservative, is sounding more like an unholy fusion of Liz Cheney and Nancy Pelosi.   Over the weekend, MTG appeared on comedian Tim Dillon’s podcast, claiming that she is still “MAGA through and through.

Just when you thought American political discourse couldn’t possibly sink any lower, along comes Laura Loomer’s deposition in her defamation of character case against Bill Maher. Last year, Maher made a joke/spread a rumor/talked trash about Loomer having sexual relations with Donald Trump (the comic used the F-word). Loomer filed suit – and somehow that suit has made it to the deposition stage. Cockburn feels a bit soiled at having read the whole 226-page document, but you can say this about Laura Loomer: She’s never dull. Loomer claims she’s never been in room alone with Donald Trump, much less had sex with him, and that all of her contacts with him occur via text messages to his aides.

Elon Musk’s departure from Washington was celebrated by many in the media. In the space of just a few years they had transformed him from a “Yay Science!” rocket-building Tony Stark stand-in doing awkward cameos on Rick and Morty into a crazed inhuman boogeyman, whose cars must be keyed, firebombed or layered with bumper stickers saying, “I bought this before Elon was a Nazi.” (Before you say that’s an exaggeration, there’s literally a Tesla with that sticker in my neighborhood – you can buy them on Etsy.

The leadership of the Democratic Party is as open as it has been in generations, with Nancy Pelosi occupying emerita status, Chuck Schumer under fire from half his party – and their most prominent governors hamstrung by problems at home or the fact they’d much rather be podcasting. The field is effectively cleared for an upstart to emerge based on sheer communications talent and the ability to take advantage of a power vacuum as an avatar of leftward frustration. And if that’s the direction Democrats decide to go in 2028, there’s no one who occupies that role right now more impressively than the constantly viral phenomenon that is the congresswoman from Dallas, Texas – Jasmine Crockett.

President-elect Donald Trump’s threat of 25 percent, across-the-board tariffs on Mexico and Canada has already shocked the system. The US dollar rose against its neighbors’ currencies, as stocks dropped and rose.Floating an additional tariff on China is one thing, but adding America’s two neighbors makes the move especially ambitious. If implemented, the US would effectively levy tariffs against its top three trading partners, which together make up around 40 to 50 percent of total trade between America and the world. That’s revolutionary.One thing that’s for certain is that tariffs would hurt the countries they target more than they hurt the US. More than 75 percent of Mexican and Canadian exports are to the Land of the Free.

“This might be the most insane hearing that I have ever attended,” freshman Representative Robert Garcia quipped during today’s hearing featuring former head of the NIAID Dr. Anthony Fauci – the first time that “America’s Doctor” testified publicly in Congress since leaving government service. Fauci, who played a dominant role in dictating public health policy across multiple presidential administrations, appeared diminutive in both his physical stature and in addressing the role he played as America grappled with a once-in-a lifetime pandemic.

Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. This old adage has taken on a new meaning for the left as Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito is developing a bit of a habit for displaying allegedly "far-right" flags. In under a week, the New York Times has unearthed images of dissident flags waving proudly at the justice’s house on two separate occasions, leaving Democrats clamoring about judicial ethics.   The smoking gun in the controversy is an “Appeal to Heaven” flag that was seen flying at Alito’s summer home on Long Beach Island in New Jersey last summer. The flag, which depicts a pine tree, was first used during the American Revolution but has since become associated with the “Stop the Steal” movement after being brandished by January 6 protesters.

After offering explanations for why TikTok presents a danger to US security, Homeland Security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas admitted Friday that his college-aged daughter uses the controversial app.At a “signature event” held by the Economic Club at the capital’s Marriott Marquis Hotel, the club’s president, David Rubenstein, sat for a lengthy conversation with the secretary. On immigration, Rubenstein pressed him, asking about asylum policy, increasing encounters and whether having a physical barrier would have helped curb illegal crossings. This reporter asked Mayorkas if the administration was preparing for any policy changes given they recently hired two new senior-level officials.

President Joe Biden has been straddling an incredibly thin line when it comes to his stance on the Israel-Gaza conflict. The president historically has been supportive of the US’s alliance with Israel but his posture has been tested by a vocal pro-Palestinian contingent in the Democratic Party; in the Democratic primaries, they voted “uncommitted” to send a message to their party’s leader and in recent weeks have showed up on college campuses to demand university administrations divest from Israel. Biden has responded by remaining vocally pro-Israel but inching further away from Israel from a policy standpoint.

If a motion to vacate the speaker of the House fails resoundingly, does it make a sound?The answer is, of course, yes — with a Capitol Hill press corps that loves nothing more than pitting all-too-willing Republicans against one another. Next week, Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene is poised to finally pull the trigger on her quixotic quest to oust Speaker Mike Johnson — but she’s likely to be left holding a bag of small-dollar donations and press clippings, which is what her detractors think she is actually motivated by.On one side of the push to oust Johnson is a trio of Greene, Thomas Massie and Paul Gosar.

President Joe Biden signed the foreign aid package, which features $95 billion for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, on Wednesday after the bill swiftly moved through Congress. The breakdown of aid is as follows: $61 billion for Ukraine, $26 billion for Israel and $8 billion for Taiwan.Speaker Mike Johnson infuriated some of his Republican colleagues by even negotiating on the legislation, let alone bringing it to the House floor for a vote; he previously said he would not move any foreign aid until Democrats agreed to give additional funds for border security. Instead, after the Senate rejected the border security bill HR-2 and Johnson rejected the Senate-negotiated immigration package, the speaker made moves to go ahead with sending money abroad anyway.